i wait for your eye to catch me
by humanveil
Summary: Ages, not in order. Canon Compliant. Mycroft & Sherlock.


**Characters:** Mycroft, Sherlock

**Word Count:** 1225

**Tags/Warnings:** Holmes Family, Drug Addiction, Character Study

**Summary:** Ages, not in order.

**Note:** canon compliant (incl. season four). writing style maybe isn't everyone's cup of tea, but, ya know. i hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Eleven, and he nicks a cigarette from Mycroft's room, smokes it hidden away in the backyard, his eyes wide, curious, ears alert, waiting for footsteps that don't come. Adrenaline, hot and searing, runs along his spine, rebellion his newfound addiction. His throat burns, new but not entirely unpleasant. He muffles coughs against the crook of his arm and leans against a tree trunk, rough bark ruining his shirt as the dizziness hits, subtle at first but growing with every inhale. He'll have to hide it. It wouldn't do to get caught. Not when that's what this is about. Mycroft, coming home, Mummy's stern voice and the lingering smell of smoke, bad habits and Uncle Rudy's influence and _been in the city less than a year._ Needs must, Mycroft had bargained, social expectation, but the damage had already been done—upset, on day one. Welcome _home_, big brother.

Mycroft reads it on him later: mouth downturned, eyes knowing, sigh long and suffering when all Sherlock does is twist his mouth in a devious sort of smile. They don't know, then, what they've started; the seeds of guilt planted in a garden that will overgrow, wild and unwieldy and would-be-beautiful if not for its tragedy.

* * *

Three, and he kicks and screams and cries, face red and eyes blazing, voice loud and demanding and _don't. call. me. William_. Stupid, he says. Dull, normal, boring, boring, _boring_. Eurus laughs a laugh he won't remember and Mummy sighs like she usually does and Daddy holds him tight to keep him still, and through it all, there's Mycroft's voice. Mycroft's voice—_Hush now, Sherlock._ Quiet, calm, controlled. Indulgent to a fault.

* * *

Sixteen, and he's hot, cold, hot, cold, vomit on his chin and eyes rolling, pale and sweaty and shaking, and this hadn't been the intention, not exactly, but he's not really upset to be here. Maybe inconvenienced. Mummy will riot when she finds out, he thinks, if she finds out, he doubts that she will (there's no one here to tell her).

The syringe falls from his fingertips, cold, empty, clattering against concrete as his body curls, folds, contorts, oblivion teetering on the edge of his consciousness, inching closer. Closer. Always closer.

* * *

Five, and people call him adorable until he opens his mouth, call him clever until it's personal, until he's spilling secrets and exposing flaws. Then he's just rude; sweetness turned sour. Mummy tells him to stop, says not every deduction needs to be announced, says, _look at Mycroft_, says, _look at Eurus_, and Sherlock scowls, doesn't stop, won't stop—a stubborn attempt to prove himself, like maybe _louder_ will one day amount to _better_.

It never seems to. It's years before he stops trying.

* * *

Nineteen, rehab. Twenty, rehab again. Twenty-one, rehab again, again, again. He escapes through a bathroom window, charms a nurse, rehearses all the right answers, tells Mycroft his brain will rot if he's left here another second, week, month: anything, everything, too desperate to care.

* * *

Seven, sixteen by six, sixteen by six, sixteen by six, brother, and under we go. He knows the song word for word, writes it out on paper and stares at it, tries to find the solution; begs Eurus, begs Mummy, begs Daddy, digs up the yard and lets it destroy him: desperation bleeding into frustration and it's no surprise, really, when he ends up crying in Mycroft's lap, little hands balled in a sweater, face blotched and snotty, bottom lip trembling as he begs his big brother to _fix it_, to find Victor, to figure out the answers and make it all stop.

Mycroft never does, his incompetence a betrayal of the highest order, the first blow to Sherlock's blind admiration. It's just as well that Sherlock forgets it - it's Mycroft's only chance at salvation.

* * *

Twenty-three, and the straw breaks the camel's back, his parents past concern when they cut him off, for real this time, but it doesn't matter, _doesn't_, not at all, not really, he doesn't need them anyway. So he says. He's still got Mycroft at any rate. Mycroft, with his lists and his blood tests and his CCTV; attempts at control wrapped up in the pretty bow of protection.

Sherlock attempts to calculate what it would take to force his brother's hand, make Mycroft give up on him for good. He stops when he can't determine an answer.

* * *

Ten, and he's empty and angry and hiding in his room, a chair against the door knob acting as a makeshift lock, Mummy's voice calling through the wood, bordering on exasperated as she tells him for the tenth time that this is his last chance, that the car will be here soon, Mycroft and most of his belongings packed in the back, but Sherlock doesn't care. He _doesn't - _regardless of the hole growing in his heart; knees to his chest and arms wrapped around them, face buried against his trousers, eyes stinging, lips wobbling, throat tightening.

He vows never to speak to his brother again.

* * *

Four, and Eurus teaches him the violin but Mycroft teaches him almost everything else. Books are read, stolen, discarded, Mycroft's voice soothing as he reworks mythology into a bedtime story, as poetry is broken down, elements explained. He allows Sherlock to insert pirates where there weren't any and uses them as an excuse to lecture on the history of tailoring and couture, fabrics described in terms of pirate hats and breeches. Sherlock hangs on to every word; deletes the boring and never, ever stops asking for more.

Hostility comes later - the memories of their brotherly love a secondary sacrifice as Eurus is written out of history.

* * *

Eighteen, and Mycroft is the one to find him, face blank but step hurried, the pristine white of his shirt gathering mud and blood and urine and vomit and any number of things he refuses to acknowledge as a hand presses at Sherlock's neck—pulse first, everything else after. There is the hospital, this time, talk of rehab, talk of institutionalisation, a feeding tube shoved down his throat when he refuses to eat, when the nurse sees the way skin stretches tight across bone: a souvenir of his self-destructive streak; years in the making.

Mummy cries, and Father takes her hand but doesn't meet his eye, and they all sit, tense and silent and disappointed, not wanting to be there. Sherlock's fingers itch against his skin, twitch with the urge to rip the IV and run, and Mycroft watches, watches, watches, kicking both their parents out when the desire almost boils over, and Sherlock hates him, _hates him, hates. him._ His clever big brother, more present than he's been in years.

* * *

Two, and he's too much; too emotional, too demanding, too clever, too rude, too _something_; a possessive creature already, clingy, jealous, with Mummy's voice at the peripheral, _it wouldn't kill you to share_, _Sherlock_, but he never does: books, toys, attention, people. All or nothing from early on. He finds the answer in Mycroft and it isn't surprising, shouldn't be, not with Mycroft's unending patience, his quiet love, his careful guidance. Occasionally, his mouth struggles to curl around his brother's name, lost as words fall, rapid-fire, and so Sherlock calls him My, _My, My, My_, so close to mine, mine, _mine_ that sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

They both wonder if there is one.


End file.
